Walnut Exports For Holiday Baking Stranded In California

Boxes of fresh California walnuts stacked almost to the ceiling in Don Barton's California packing facility should be headed to Europe for holiday baking and to Asia for New Year celebrations, Sharon Bernstein and Nathan Frandino reported for Reuters.

Photo Insert: A walnut harvest

Instead, newly cleaned and shelled nuts - about $10 million worth - are stuck at his processing plant near Sacramento, thousands of miles from their destinations, as the global supply chain crisis squeezes ports. California is the world’s biggest producer of walnuts.

Transportation and supply-chain problems are hurting farmers across the US West Coast, a major global supplier of specialty crops like fruits and nuts popular at year-end celebrations.

Ships that would normally pick up walnuts from Barton's company, Gold River Orchards, are skipping the Port of Oakland where the nuts are usually exported, or showing up at odd or unexpected times that make it difficult to get the product to the docks.

"We are shipping right now less than half of what we should be shipping and could be shipping this time of the year, simply because there's not equipment available," said Barton, standing amid towering processing machinery and pallets loaded with boxes marked for shipment abroad.

Ships are also skipping the Northwest Seaport complex in Seattle and Tacoma where hay, apples, and beans wait to be exported. At the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, freighters wait for weeks for a berth in the harbor, only to then leave abruptly, in many cases without picking up goods for export.

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